Forum Review Wanted

I would like to get some thoughts/opinions on my fairly new forum, it is mainly for YouTube users and a place for them to get advice on YouTube promotion, a place for promoting their videos, editing videos and so on, anything YouTube related really.

YouTube Forums

I would love to hear your thoughts on the style etc so far and any suggestions for improvement as I want to make it the best I can. I do want to stick with the default XF to make upgrading as less hassle as possible but of course make it look good and right for the niche.

I am aware of the header statistics not working throughout the site, unfortunately Floris's Header Stats Thingy mod is only available for the index at present but I like it so much and will wait till it supports sitewide.

I am fully open to suggestions and any ideas you might have, anything at all

Thank you

Thanks for your input Barry, I couldnt agree more, I aint too happy with the unread/read icons, theyre very plain. I will try that out a bit later on and see how it turns out

Michael,

Your Design is very nice. Love the status icons. It's very nice and clean.

Excellent work.

Looking nice Michael.

A few things I feel you should look at starting with the obvious. Replacing the Jumpmenutrigger icon residing in the spritesheet. Currently it's the default blue and doesn't compliment your style colour so I would either re-colour this a dark grey or better still come up with a custom design.

With regards to your mega footer (which btw I like) but i feel surrounding your links within the megafooter isn't doing the area justice by wrapping a border, gradient etc around them. I think the border and all makes the area look and feel cluttered. Perhaps go with some bullet style icons which I think would give the links prominence but keeping things organised and tidy at the same time.

I also noticed you .bbCodeQuote blockquote is styled in red or atleast the background is in the top area but I see that there's a blue border still there which could do with being changed to a darker read than the background-color so it highlights the quote box better. I suspect the codebox might suffer from the same styling issue with the border colour so you may also want to check on that also.

Apart from that and at a glance that I've made with your style everything else is looking good so nice work with all of that but the above is just the stuff I found that i personally feel should be looked at.

Thanks for the reviews I will get onto those now, I was aware of the BBCode issue and I believe I just ended up ignoring it lol would you have any styling for the links other than the bullets? I have done the icon although I aint so sure of it and I recoloured some of the others in there, my icon design skills are very weak at most

Just so I understand your looking for an alternative jumptriggericon? that resides in the breadcrumbs? if so go take a look at bbsmiley.com and you should see the style test your more than free to crop out the jump trigger icon i designed last night from the spritesheet.

Pending you think it suits which i think it will.

Thanks a lot! I know it will look great when its up in a second.

It is up now and I am very pleased with it, thank you

Nice work.

The little touches always make the biggest difference I can't state that enough to people.

I'll hunt around for an icon i designed if i can locate it over the weekend for your megafooter links if your still pondering on removing the mega footer link css styling.

That would great thank you, I aint too happy with my own icon, it works but its not that nice. I am considering customising things a lot more a time goes on where I can, I really am tempted to do the message template and the left side of it rather than just changing its colour.

Michael,
While I am far from a designer, or really any good at what I attempt, I have to say that the help everyone has given you has really assisted your site. I only use YouTube to laugh at people getting attacked by magpies or pranked but your website makes me want to join.

It is very clean, crisp and easy to look at. Your site, along with AdX and BBSmiley, makes me want to offload my vB Publishing Suite account ASAP to switch to XF.

Keep up the good work and please keep us updated.

Thanks Merk, I have had some very good help here in getting things perfected, my graphics work when it comes to styling forums can be awful at times.

I am glad it makes you feel like that too, feel free to join if you want Thanks for the kinds words too

Well let's just say with my son battling cancer at the moment so all of my free funds going towards his continued battle - your site along with AdX and BBSmiley has convinced me to put my vB Publishing Suite + Branding Free up for grabs for just enough to get XenForo - I want to play now and if I can make my site look half as good as any of the three mentioned it would be a fantastic site.

Thanks Azhria,
You do what you have to do. I remember about 12 months ago I was buying all the software I wanted, all the addons, custom skins etc and now all of a sudden everything changes.

But hopefully the license will sell and I can be part of the cool crowd and be using XenForo As I said getting it to look anything like AdX, BBSmiley or Michael's site would mean I have one good looking site

Review:- YouTube Forums
In a bid to show the administration team here at AdminExtra that I am worthy of a role on their upcoming review team I thought I would show my worth by doing a review on the only request we have for one at the moment.

Initial Thoughts:
Upon arriving at your website the banner and status icons immediately told me what your website was about. Which is comforting compared to others that you really need to look into to find (unless you already know). The domain name is quick, simple and to the point.

Initially I was disappointed to see that you did not have the default board statistics, as that is an easier way for people who are on the verge of signing up after watching your forum to know whether it is improving or dragging.

Sign Up:
As expected the sign up process was quick and painless, however I was surprised to learn that you did not have e-mail account verification. Upon signing up I was immediately a full member and able to post etc.

However! there was one thing that bugged me during the sign up process and that was the youtube username section. I know what my username is on YouTube and I entered it three times exactly the same before it would actually accept it the rest of the time the error box would appear.

Website Layout:
I have been a long time fan of your website layout. It has always been a case of 'less is more'.
I like the video of the month award being in your header for everyone to see and no doubt as your community grows so will the popularity of that feature, and the Video of the month award winner will no doubt see their hits rising - hell even I clicked on it and it's not my usual forte.

While I do think that your status icons could be improved somewhat the feeling deep down inside is that they are good enough for what the website is and should be left alone, you have done fantastic work on your style to date.

The footer menu is fantastic, I am starting to see those footer's appear on a few sites now and tomorrow morning when I wake up I will be looking through every resource website I can to try and figure it all out on how to create one for my new site.

There are some issues about your layout though that I am concerned about, and please note that this is meant to be constructive and is not meant to sound like it is attacking you.

Parts of your website give me a headache. For example during the content sections there is a lot of white, the dividers (bars) are also very bright and it prevents me from really being able to stay at your website for a long time. I already have poor eye sight but a bit of colour even just a black border (or a somewhat darker coloured border) wouldn't go a miss just to break up from the white and the light grey/gray gradient.

Your navigation bar looks a little messy. Not the bar itself but it kinda looks confusing with the Red Bar for the navigation (that is fine) and then the black secondary navigation bar on a white background. Once the secondary navigation bar (which is black) finishes the background of your website turns black and to me (and only me in this write up) it looks weird to have the black on white, then the white on black starting immediately after.

And just while I am here - the logo section looks a little too busy with the google+ and facebook items there, moving them to the sidebar would extend that a little where it should then line up with the boards and make it not as cluttered at the logo - however I suspect that you have done this to try and entice your members/guests to click the like buttons when they come to your website.

Overall:
Overall Michael I thank you for giving me the opportunity to review your website, and hopefully for taking everything I have said as constructive criticism.

Your website looks good, as I said there are a number of things I am not a fan off but that could just be me, there is no doubt that it continues to grow and reading through your posts your members seem to be enjoying it.

I think it has a bright future, however implore you to continue to look at ways of expanding and improving as it is good for now but no doubt there will be others that come that will look to out do you so keep your head up and your mind focused.

Your website is a great site for anyone interested in youtube and their videos.

I wish you the best of luck in your future success.

- Nightmare

Thanks for the review Merk and for signing up, I will address as many things you pointed out as possible, I am a little unsure about what you mean with the divider bars. I do the same on all my websites with the google and facebook and it is to entice more clicks as theyre rarely noticed elsewhere from my experience so I will be keeping those there

The navigation area I am not too happy with myself, I attempted to customise it but I have never had a good feel for doing them and I always tend to poorly style them, I will definitely work on that soon enough.

Oh and I will fix that sign up error probably by removing it from sign up as it is fine when filling it in later and I wasnt aware of that so thanks a lot and cheers for the great review.